Honest Jeff and filings from LaLa Land

Jeff Skilling was an honest guy, a regular working stiff giving his all for the good of the company. That’s the gist of the latest filing from the lawyers on Planet Skilling. They’re attempting to use the gibberish from the Aug. 1 appeals court decision in the Nigerian barge case to their advantage.

That ruling, as I’ve said before, is based on a serpentine logic that essentially uses the so-called “honest services” statute to condone dishonesty. In that case, the court found that outside bankers didn’t act against the interests of Enron’s shareholders because in helping executives deceive the market, Enron benefited.

Using that same pretzel logic, Skilling’s lawyers say the government isn’t entitled to the $183 million it wants to collect because Skilling was only doing what was best for Enron. They say that the government can claim — at most — about $12.5 million.

Oh, and they also want the judge to allow Skilling to sell some assets so he can fork over the $30 million he owes them in unpaid legal bills.

There’s a lot of verbiage in the filing about Skilling’s loyalty and dedication to Enron, the company which, by the way, he helped destroy.

The “honest services” bit seemed a stretch with regard to the Merrill Lynch bankers, but it’s downright laughable when it comes to Skilling. How did he serve Enron’s best interests?

Most of the reasons are regurgitated right from the trial testimony, and they include Skilling’s claim that he was going to put $70 million of his own money toward a $3 billion fantasy deal he and Cliff Baxter cooked up to save the company in late 2001.

This was, of course, after he bailed out as Enron’s chief executive in the face of a looming crisis he helped create, then dumped a big slug of his company stock weeks later.